About the Film

The Greely Expedition

In 1881, 25 men led by Adolphus Greely set sail from Newfoundland to Lady Franklin Bay in the high Arctic, where they planned to collect a wealth of scientific data from a vast area of the world’s surface that had been described as a "sheer blank." Three years later, only six survivors returned, with a daunting story of shipwreck, starvation, mutiny and cannibalism. The film reveals how poor planning, personality clashes, questionable decisions and pure bad luck conspired to turn a noble scientific mission into a human tragedy.

Photo Gallery: Images from the Arctic

In 1881, the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition set out for the far North to spend two years recording scientific data. Sergeant George Rice was the official photographer on the team, and his images capture details of the men's lives in the vast, bleak Arctic landscape. When the party left Fort Conger August 1883 Rice took few more photos.